KYLE MURPHYStaff Writer

Tullahoma Parks and Recreation’s most popular educational program, Lunch and Learn, made its return this past week with the department’s own Lyle Russell sharing some haunting tales to get into the Halloween spirit.

The Lunch and Learn made its return after a brief hiatus on Wed, Oct. 18, to a packed room at D.W. Wilson Community Center with boxed lunches from Crazy Daisies of Manchester. The featured speaker was Deputy Director and City Forrester Lyle Russell. Along with his duties at parks and rec, he also hosts his podcast “Tennessee Ghosts and Legends” where in each episode he discusses different tales of legends and hauntings, which include the Bell Witch of Robertson County to Coffee County’s own legend of Sadie Baker.

For the program, Russell told attendees three stories that take place in Tennessee and have been featured on his podcast: the Shelby Forest Pig Man, the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary and the strange death of Meriwether Lewis. 

Shelby Forest Pig Man

The story of the Shelby Forest Pig Man tells of a man who worked at the Chickasaw Ordnance Works power plant in Millington during WWII, who was disposing of some chemicals behind the tunnels and into the creek. When he finished, he went to a nearby tree where he had stashed his cigarettes and matches for a smoke. When he struck the match on the box, the tiny spark ignited the residue on the man’s hands and clothes, causing great damage to his face, hands and body, but he survived. As the story goes, the accident took off his nose, scorched his face and scalp and burned his ears almost completely off. The final result of the damage left his scarred face looking like a disfigured pig head on a human body.

After a stay in the hospital, the man was soon shunned by his friends and family, leaving him bitter, angry and sleeping under a bridge while he continued to work at the factory until it closed for good. With nowhere to go, he went back to the bridge and secluded himself, leading to stories of a “pig man” who lived under the bridge who kidnapped children to eat them. Russell told attendees the legend says if they were to park in the middle of the bridge in a night with a full moon, they could turn off the car, roll down the window, flash their lights three times and say “Pigman, Pigman, Pigman!” for him to appear. Though there hasn’t been serious reports of a sighting after attempting this summoning ritual, there have been people who have claimed to see and hear strange sounds and figures in the Meeman-Shelby Forest. 

Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary

The next story Russell shared was the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, located in Petros near Knoxville. Russell talked about the prison’s history, where prisoners worked in the coal mines for a coal company. He stated that many prisoners died in those mines and left debts their families could never repay, while those who remained at the prison were left in a simmering boil, ready at any moment to lash out in frustration with being taken advantage of by the mining companies. Russell said there is a graveyard at the prison but all the tombstones were removed, leaving many unmarked graves with little to no records of who was buried there.

Russell said he met a guard who worked at the prison in the 2000s just before it closed in 2009. Russell said the guard knew of his podcast and asked him questions about the prisoners’ treatments and was told it was a terrible place and that “for every prisoner that they had there were at least ten rattlesnakes,” where the guards would see the eight to 10-foot rattlesnakes from the guard towers. Russell told attendees at in the paranormal community, it is believed that areas with so much death, tragedy and suffering hold some of the residue suffering behind long after someone is gone. He said the place that was the worse with paranormal activity was the chapel, which was converted from a room where those in the prison didn’t want to be recorded. He said prisoners would go to the chapel because it was so cold in there, where cold spots are associated with paranormal activities, it was the closest thing they had to air conditioning.

Russell pointed out that those might recognize the front of the prison from the movie “The Last Castle” starring Robert Redford and James Gandolfini, which did film at the prison. Russell added he once saw a snippet where Redford stated that he would “never return to that place.” 

The property has been turned into a restaurant, brewery and offer tours. 

The death of Meriwether Lewis

The final story Russell shared with the group was the strange death of Meriwether Lewis. Russell said while the death of one of America’s most recognizable names in its early exploration is not paranormal, it is one of Tennessee’s most enduring mysterious that no one has been able to solve. Russell said the time period during the Lewis and Clark exploration was fascinating as it was a group of individuals setting off from St. Louis to explore unknown territory in the country at the time to reach the Pacific Ocean. He said when he found out that the Meriwether Lewis Monument and gravesite, was only two hours away from him, he got his son and they took a trip to Hohenwald to visit the site near the Natchez Trace Parkway.

Per Russell, shortly after the exploration Lewis became the governor of the Louisiana Territory and began gathering material for a memoir that was in high demand. Russell noted that it was during this time that Lewis was under a lot of pressure and struggling with some mental health issues. As the story goes, Lewis, not trusting anyone with his memoirs, he decided he would travel to present his papers to the Philadelphia publishers for publication. When he arrived at Fort Pickering, near modern-day Memphis, he was sick and “not acting right.” The commander told Lewis he couldn’t let him leave and needed to stay until they could send someone with him to take care of him. Russell noted some of the speculation regarding Lewis’ well-being with it ranging from self-medicating, as he was a hypochondriac, to being an addict to possible suffering from syphilis. James Neelly, a Chickasaw Indian agent who was at the fort, said Lewis could travel with him as he was heading to Nashville. The two left the fort and would stop at Grinder’s Stand 10 days later on Oct. 10, 1809, which would be his last stop as he was found dead the following morning from two gunshot wounds in the stomach and head.

According to Russell, the owner Priscilla Griner gave three different accounts for a 30-year period where in one account Lewis was acting strangely, in another account he made overtures towards her, as her husband was away, and in the third account she said his servants killed him.

“The waters around his death are very muddy,” Russell said. “Nobody knows for sure.”

Russell said given Lewis was a noted marksman and his death, officially ruled as a suicide, involved two gunshot wounds to the stomach and head, he didn’t personally believe that Lewis’ death was a suicide. He also didn’t believe he self-medicated himself to death, as he made sure no one died during the Lewis and Clark expedition other than in the beginning, and said the most plausible to him was that he was murdered. Russell shared that the prevailing theory surrounding Lewis’ death was that Priscilla’s husband found them in a compromising position and killed him.

Russell shared that speculation was so high involving Lewis’ death that his body was exhumed in the 1840s and a report was made. Since it had to be court ordered, it was taken to the local magistrate, and was burned in a fire, according to Russell. Nowadays, there are societies that make petitions to re-exhume his grave. but the ranger told Russell that state parks have strict rules that prohibit it, regardless that it could solve the century’s old mystery. He added that due to threats of exhuming the body, the monument is a decoy and only two people who work in the U.S. government know the exact location of Lewis’ body on the property. 

“Without knowing where he is at, he will never be exhumed again,” Russell said.

The Lunch and Learn program will take place every third Wednesday of every month going forward. The next Lunch and Learn will feature former Tullahoma mayor Lane Curlee as he presents the “Twenty Decisions, Events and Personalities that shaped Tullahoma” on Wed, Nov. 15, at 11:45 a.m. at D.W. Wilson Community Center, located at 501 N. Collins St. Those interested can RSVP at www.tullahomaparks.com or by calling 931-455-1121.